World Internet Connections Mapped

Spending a lot of time on the internet, you might be forgiven for forgetting what a tiny little corner of it you inhabit. All the sights you know and visit only make a miniscule fraction of the internet population, as illustrated by this map by the Information Geography project at the Oxford Internet Institute.

The map takes data from 2011 and turns it into a surprising visual representation of internet users and total connections. The world would certainly look different if geographical borders depended on internet presence, to say the least. The size of a country on this map corresponds with the amount of users connected to the internet in that country, whilst the color of the country relates the percentage of people with an internet in that country.

Unsurprisingly, China’s huge population translates to a bloated country on the map, though its connectivity was only between 40 and 60 per cent of the total populace. Countries such as South Korea, Canada and Sweden were all colored deep red to show their immensely high range of internet penetration, which stands at over 80 per cent in each nation.

The most surprising growth comes from a number of African nations, who have experienced a huge growth in internet presence since the connections were last mapped. The last time Information Geographies, released a similar map in 2008, most of the African continent was a black hole as far as the internet was concerned.